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In the wake of the most recent attacks in Australia, Canada and the United States the questions surrounding sources of the radicalization is often a topic of concern. With most self starters a good portion of that radicalization is more and more being attributed to material consumed on the internet. As the world watches Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) flood social media with content one thing is very clear about the online battle with the group, we are losing!

The War on Social Media

For corporations that are being used in the proxy online war it will require a shift in how they do business. For Google, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter they simply cannot afford to have their brands associated with the extremist messages that ISIS, Jabhat al Nusra (JN) and Al Qaeda (AQ) foster. They will need to increase their ability to deal with extremist content in a much more effective method. The notion that “we rely on our users to notify us of inappropriate content” is not going to cut it moving forward. Extremist groups are deploying content to social media at a faster and faster pace, one only needs to look at the number of ISIS videos currently on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to see that. For the vast amounts of money that each company takes in in any given year they will need to consider hiring extremism experts to proactively monitor content. ISIS, AQ and JN actively use branding in their online videos and pictures, and these companies will need to use those branding symbols to more readily identify terrorist content as they have done with child pornography and copy right infringement. From an ethical and social/corporate responsibility perspective these companies will need to do better.

This is not to say that some companies like Facebook haven’t been trying to keep up. Perhaps one of the largest battles between Facebook and ISIS has been in their attempts to crush the “Bilad al Shaam Media” pages that have had a continual presence since before the announcement of the Islamic State. The day after the Australia hostage siege Facebook removed the 100th iteration of the popular ISIS page with well over 3000 users (above) . In the same breath ISIS launched three new Bilad al Shaam sites to continue their operations on Facebook. This is a battle of persistence that will require vigilance and continuous monitoring to start to push the groups away from the larger social media companies. To some extent we have already seen this happening with groups like ISIS moving to platforms like justpaste.it and manbar.me (the Arabic version of Justpaste.it). Both sites are anonymous media hosting sites that terrorist groups have been using to host and direct users to content. Another curious trend noticed by several experts is the return to webpage based sites and chat forums like ISIS’s webpage http://www.alplatformmedia.com (below).

As has been realized by Al-Shabaab (www.al-qimmah.net) and the Taliban (www.shahamat-english.com) , if you can persist through Denial of Service (DNS) attacks by hackers and governments the worst that will happen is they will have to move servers from time to time. In fact while Canadian troops were in the process of preparing to pull out of Afghanistan in late 2012, the Taliban’s webmaster Adil Watanmal had moved all seven of the Talibans websites to a server in Vancouver, Canada (below). The site which primarily is used for propaganda was also engaged in fund raising activities, thus creating a situation where the Taliban were using Canadian servers to assist in fighting against Canadian troops. These types of blatant abuses have resulted in greater calls for internet service providers (ISP) to track and be aware of the content that is being put up on their servers.

Apps in the New Age of Terror

The creation of apps for radicalization is not new. J.M. Berger has previously pointed out how ISIS used the Dawn of Glad Tidings app on Google Play to build the fire storm of twitter support for ISIS. In his forthcoming book, ISIS: The State of Terror he outlines in detail the sophisticated social media strategy of the terror group. Other groups like the Sikh extremist group Babbar Khalsa, have also used the Google play store in the past with their launch of Babbar Khalsa Radioon Google play.

When we speak about radicalizing potential a group that seems to have gone untouched by Facebook, Twitter and Google Play with a string of social media pages and apps are those under the banner “Generation Awlaki”. Anwar al-Awlaki a highly influential al-Qaeda propagandist and recruiter who was most notoriously linked to the Fort Hood attack was killed in a US drone attack in 2011. His radical preachings however persist as both AQ and ISIS groups have sourced Awlaki in their justification for terror attacks and recruitment to violent jihad. More concerning is that his preachings have reached a cult status amongst extremists and terrorists the world over, having more followers in death than he ever did in life due to the continued growth of social media. In our analysis we were able to locate several instance of the “Generation Awlaki” brand being used on Facebook, Twitter and Google play.

Examining the users of this content you see a spectrum of individuals along all parts of the path to violent extremism, from the casually interested to the hardcore foreign fighters and terrorist members. The concern of course with these apps and sites is they put recruiters and propagandists in touch with individuals that may be vulnerable to recruitment to the group or adopting the ideological cause. This is one explanation behind the meteoric rise in foreign fighters that has been seen with ISIS coinciding with their unprecedented social media campaign.

Prevention: A Role for Everyone

Radicalization and prevention is a community issue that will more and more involve social media and the need for users and responsible corporate partners to do their part. As we are seeing the police simply do not have the resources to do it all. If we had endless budgets and resources we could follow and monitor individuals around the clock but that isn’t realistic nor sustainable. If we tackle the issue from a medical model it will mean delivering prevention techniques to those individuals at risk earlier in order to prevent the scenes that we saw recently in Ottawa and Sydney. Everyone has a role in prevention and governments at all levels will need to do more to empower the community, religious organizations and parents to recognize what radicalization looks like and methods for preventing it. At a corporate level, with respect to terrorist’s use of social media, with corporations boasting record profits and share prices the argument that they are ill equipped to deal with the problem seems like a weak one to me. It’s time they start engaging with the experts and thinking out of the box on tackling the issues and doing their part.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained 900 pages of newly released internal documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) indicating there may have been a serious rift between the agency’s 9/11 Commission Task Force (Task Force) and the National Commission on Terrorism (Commission) in tracking the activities of U.S.-born al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Aulaqi. Additionally, in an October 2003 email from al-Aulaqi to an FBI agent, the terrorist says he is “astonished” and “amazed” by the media coverage of him and hoped that “US authorities know better.”

The documents were released as a result of the court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit,Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:12-cv-00893), which was filed on June 4, 2012. Judicial Watch first asked for the documents over three years ago, in September 2011.

The FBI emails obtained by Judicial Watch dating back to December 2003 suggest that agency personnel were bothered by the Commission’s “numerous and unrelenting requests” and were dismissive of the Commission’s work. The emails indicate that the FBI refused to set up interviews between the Commission and al-Aulaqi, and was surprised to learn of the Commission’s trip to Yemen, in what turned out to be a futile attempt to track down the terrorist. Quoting from the emails:

FBI email from December 15, 2003 – “SA [REDACTED] has had a conversation with Aulaqi and has tentatively set up an interview for mid March. With the Va. Jihad trial scheduled for early Feb. this is will be the earliest SA [REDACTED] can meet Aulaqi [REDACTED] With that said, we would not want to do the interview with the 9/11 commission. If the 9/11 commission needs to meet with Aulaqi, we will provide the contact information so they can set up their own interview.” [Emphasis added]

FBI email from December 21, 2003 – “… I would like copies of all e-mail contacts between [REDACTED] and Aulaqi as soon as possible. They [apparently the 9/11 Commission] have requested copies of these e-mails. I will discuss the content with the commission staff and determine what the course of action will be. This is a hot topic for them and they have been relentless in their desire to interview Aulaqi.” [Emphasis added]

FBI email apparently also on December 21, 2003 – “… the [FBI] 9/11 Commission Task Force (Task Force) has received numerous and unrelenting requests from the NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORISM (9/11 Commission) regarding closed WFO [Washington Field Office] subject Anwar Aulaqi. These requests stemmed from WFO’s revelation to 9/11 Commission staff member [REDACTED] that an individual representing himself as Aulaqi left several telephone messages on SA [REDACTED] office voice mail. WFO EC dated 11/25/03 provides explicit details regarding these voice messages, and 9/11Commission is aware of the same … Nonetheless, for reasons not clearly discernable to the Task Force, the 9/11 Commission reiterates the following Miscellaneous Request [REDACTED].” [Emphasis added]

FBI undated email, likely in 2004 after Al Aulaqi had moved to Yemen – “… Apparently the 9/11 Commission is interested in interviewing Anwar Al-Aulaqi and some members are en route to Yemen to try and do that … I was interviewed by the 09/11 Commission on 10/16 about Aulaqi … They were obviously interested but made no requests for assistance in setting up their potential interview with Aulaqi. According to [REDACTED] the 09/11 Commission that is enroute to Yemen is now trying to figure out how they’re going to arrange the interview of Aulaqi once they get there.”

On October 23, 2003, al-Aulaqi wrote (after first leaving a voice mail) to an unnamed official at the FBI Academy:

I was astonished by some of the talk circulating in the media about me. I was even more surprised to know that the congressional report on Sep 11 had alluded to me as being a “spiritual adviser” to the hijackers. The Guardian newspaper in the UK mentioned that the US authorities are looking for me in the UK while Time magazine mentions that they are looking for me in Yemen. Well in both countries I could be easily accessed. Even though I have nothing more to say than what I did at our previous meetings I just wanted to let you know that I am around and available. I am amazed at how absurd the media could be and I hope that the US authorities know better and realize that what was mentioned about me was nothing but lies.

Despite this email and an offer to speak with U.S. officials, the final report of the Commission notes that its members were unable to locate al-Aulaqi for an interview during the course of their investigation. The report describes al-Aulaqi’s prior relationship with at least two of the 9/11 hijackers as a “remarkable coincidence” and describes him as a “potentially significant San Diego contact” of the hijackers.

Al-Aulaqi’s email offering to meet with the FBI after being identified as a person of interest by the Commission is the latest in a series of events that have fueled speculation that he was an asset or an intelligence source for the U.S. government.

On September 30, 2011, Anwar al-Awlaki, a senior official of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen. Yesterday, the Obama administration released a Justice Department memo justifying this drone strike in response to a lawsuit by the ACLU and New York Times.

Many on the left and a few on the right, such as Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) have objected to the killing of Awlaki since he was a Yemeni-American born in the United States.

The New York Times disputes that Awlaki was planning “imminent” attacks and claims that “the memo says only that Mr. Awlaki had joined Al Qaeda and was planning attacks on Americans, but that the government did not know when these attacks would occur.”

Such muddleheaded thinking on national security is breathtaking. How much evidence will it take to convince the Times that Awlaki was a serious threat?

After post-9/11 Bush administration counterterrorism programs and increased security put al-Qaeda on the run and made terrorist attacks on the United States much more difficult, Awlaki became the leading al-Qaeda leader of its Yemen franchise Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) by recruiting terrorists within the U.S. using the internet. Some in the U.S. intelligence community referred to him as an “e-iman” because of his internet savvy and ability to use other forms of electronic communications to spread his message and recruit followers.

Awlaki successfully inspired many home-grown radical Islamist terrorists in the UK and the United States. Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra said in a 2009 op-ed:

“Al-Awlaki’s sermons have influenced would-be homegrown terrorists in the United States and the terrorists who launched the deadly 2005 London subway bombings. Mr. al-Awlaki, who was born in the U.S. and speaks perfect English, has been using his own Web page, social-networking sites such as Facebook, and e-mail to preach a message of violence to English speaking Muslims around the world.”

The men who planned to attack Fort Dix in 2007 had recorded copies of Awlaki’s sermons as did the Toronto-18 group that was arrested in 2006 for planning to attack the Canadian parliament and assassinate Canada’s prime minister. Army Major Nidal Hassan, who carried out a November 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas which resulted in 13 killed and over 30 wounded, communicated with Awlaki over the internet. 2009 Christmas Day underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab almost certainly met Awlaki during a 2009 trip to Yemen and may have been recruited by him. Awlaki also may have inspired Faisal Shahzad’s May 1, 2010 attempt to set off a car bomb in Times Square and Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year old Somali-American who tried to bomb a Christmas tree lighting in Oregon in December 2010.

Awlaki also is believed to have inspired five American Muslims from the Washington, DC area who were arrested after arriving in Pakistan in December 2010 for terrorist training and Zachary Chesser who was arrested in New York in July 2010 before boarding a plane to travel to Somalia where he planned to join the al Shabaab Islamist terrorist group.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who with his brother Tamerlan staged the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, said he and his brother were influenced by Awlaki’s internet sermons. Tsarnaev also told the FBI that he and his brother learned how to the build the pressure cooker bombs they used to attack the marathon from AQAP’s English language internet magazine, Inspire, which promoted radical Islamist ideology and encouraged its readers to conduct terrorist attacks against the West. Inspire was founded by Awlaki and featured his sermons. It was edited by Pakistani-American Samir Khan who was killed by the same drone strike that killed Awlaki.

Add to all of this the fact that three 9/11 hijackers attended services in Awlaki’s Falls Church, Virginia mosque.

The Times, the ACLU and Senator Paul have asserted that the targeted killing of Awlaki violated the U.S. Constitution, specifically his due process rights as an American citizen, and required an independent review prior to the attack.

I agree with former CIA Director Michael Hayden who said in 2011 that Awlaki should not have been protected by his American citizenship from a targeted killing because he voluntarily became part of an enemy force.

Moreover, there was outside review of the proposal to kill Awlaki with a drone strike because the Presidential Finding approving the strike was briefed to Congress in advance and Congressional leaders were fully on board. That’s why no members of the intelligence committees or senior congressional leaders objected to the Awalki killing after it occurred.

The Obama administration was right about the Awlaki drone strike. By helping run the AQAP terrorist group in Yemen and recruiting terrorists to attack the U.S. homeland, Awalki should not have been protected from a targeted killing because he was an American citizen. Moreover, the Obama administration took the proper steps to obtain the necessary legal and political backing for this attack by a careful review by the Justice Department and by convincing Congressional leaders and the intelligence committees to support the drone strike because Awlaki was an active participant in an armed enemy force.

The drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki is a rare example of the President and Congress working together to defend American national security. Rather than lodge dubious complaints that this attack violated the law, the New York Times, the ACLU , and Senator Paul should press the White House to engage in advance consultations with Congress on similar threats in the future.

Letting terrorists off the hook is dangerous, but inviting a terrorist to dine at the Pentagon is downright dangerous and bizarre. But that’s exactly what happened when Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born terrorist ultimately assassinated by President Obama, was asked to speak at a Pentagon luncheon.

The more we learn about what the government knew about al-Aulaqi, the more curious we become as to why this man was courted by those entrusted with our national security.

The same can be said for Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national with known ties to terrorism who was arrested by British authorities working with the FBI days after the 9/11 attacks. Al-Bayoumi was subsequently released one week later. He remains at large.

Judicial Watch has been investigating the suspicious relationships between suspected terrorists and our federal government because we believe our national security has been compromised by cover-ups, incompetence and pro-jihadist political correctness.

JW recently released 79 pages of investigative reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) providing further evidence of ties between terrorist leaders Anwar al-Aulaqi and Omar al-Bayoumi, the government of Saudi Arabia, and FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) counter-terrorism investigations in the days leading up to the 9-11 terrorist attack.

Included in the new documents are dozens of pages of a case-establishing “Letterhead Memorandum” from the FBI’s Washington headquarters and San Diego field office. Limited portions of some of the memos had been previously released, but with many of the key elements heavily redacted. The documents came in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch against the U.S. Department of State and FBI on June 4, 2012.

Among the new revelations contained in the 79 pages of documents are the following:

The FBI had early suspicions about closer ties between Aulaqi and 9-11 hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi than Aulaqi admitted: “This data suggests a more pervasive connection between al-Hazmi and Aulaqi than he [Aulaqi] admitted to during his interview with the FBI.”

The FBI had confirmed Aulaqi’s nexus with other FBI counter-terrorism investigations: “[Investigations] of Aulaqi reveal further links to other FBI International Terrorist investigations including … the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the United States.”

The documents explicitly state that as far back as 2001, Omar al-Bayoumi was reportedly a Saudi intelligence agent: “An individual who has requested confidentiality has stated al-Bayoumi is believed to have worked for the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Service and reports on dissident Saudis in the U.S. Rental and other records indicate al-Bayoumi consistently indicated his occupation as a student.”

Several pages of heavily redacted investigative reports contain analysis of pen registers of al-Aulaqi calls. These include a reference to an al-Aulaqi nexus with the DEA investigation, as well as contacts between al-Aulaqi and al-Bayoumi: “DEA Analysts are continuing analysis of telephone call activity …” and al-Aulaqi “… was also involved in call activity with … San Diego PENTTBOM subject OMAR AL-BAYOUMI. AL-BAYOUMI cosigned the lease of an apartment rented by [terrorist hijackers] NAWAF ALHAZMI and KHALID ALMIHDHAR.”

Omar al-Bayoumi’s activities while in San Diego, California, were apparently on behalf of the government of Saudi Arabia according to an unidentified FBI source: al-Bayoumi disclosed “to others at the Islamic Center of San Diego (ICSD) he had friends or contacts at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles, California … [redacted] advised AL-BAYOUMI was extremely close to other ICSD Saudis … believed AL-BAYOUMI was in the United States on scholarship from the Saudi Airport Authority of Saudi Airlines ….” Saudi Airlines is the flag-carrying airline of Saudi Arabia.

Omar al-Bayoumi was one of dozens of other Saudis in the U.S. on similar arrangements: “[Redacted] identified AL-BAYOUMI as a ghost employee of AVCO Oversees … estimated that there were approximately fifty (50) individuals carried on the books and PCA or Dallah and being paid for doingnothing.” Dallah AVCO is headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

According to a New York Times article on a secret Congressional report in 2003, Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national, was suspected of being a Saudi intelligence agent who may have reported to Saudi government officials. The article said that al-Bayoumi was employed by a contractor to the Saudi civil aviation authority, and received payments authorized by a Saudi official. According to the Times story, “The payments authorized by the Saudi official increased significantly after Mr. al-Bayoumi came in contact with the two hijackers in early 2000, the classified part of the report states.”

And now al-Bayoumi–the suspected Saudi intelligence agent, who co-signed a lease on behalf of terrorist hijackers and served as a “ghost employee” for a Saudi shell company–is “at large.” Even though he was once in custody by British intelligence and the FBI.

Subsequent to the FBI’s discovery, al-Aulaqi was detained and released by authorities at least twice.

These documents suggest that serious questions remain about what an obvious Saudi intelligence asset was doing in assisting the 9/11 hijackers. As these newly released documents confirm, as far back as the 9/11 attacks, the FBI had substantial evidence that both al-Aulaqi and al-Bayoumi were involved in 9/11. One was not punished for a dozen years, and the other still roams free. We intend to keep digging into this critical issue. It should cause concern that none of these questions were answered before Obama ordered al-Aulaqi’s controversial assassination.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton is author of the NY Times best-seller “The Corruption Chronicles” and executive producer of the documentary “District of Corruption.”

Hasan signs his statement/confession as SOA or Soldier of Allah. His motives entirely depend on Islam and the Koran. His entire ideology is an Islamist reading that rejects national allegiances in favor of Islam.

This is his confession.

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful

I, Nidal Malik Hasan, am compelled to renounce any oaths of allegiances that require me to support/defend any man made constitution (like the constitution of the United States) over the commandments mandated in Islam (Quran and Sunnah.)

The sovereignty of Allah must always prevail over the sovereignty of man.

I therefore formally renounce my oath of office as well as any other implicit or explicit oaths I have made in the past that associate partners with Allah. This includes an oath of US citizenship.

The partners reference means Shirk or idolatry. Hasan makes it clear that his theology is hard core Islamist when he refers to the Constitution as Shirk.

Do you have any closing statements?

I invite the world to read the book of Allah and decide for themselves if it is the truth.

That would be Hasan’s call to Islam.

Question: What was your relationship with Anwar Al-Awlaki?

He was my teacher, mentor and friend. I hold him in high esteem for trying to educate Muslims about their duties to Allah. May Allah accept his martyrdom. We are imperfect Muslims trying to establish the perfect religion of Allah as supreme on the land.”

And here Hasan confesses to being Al Qaeda. He names Anwar Al-Awlaki, an Al-Qaeda leader, as his mentor, and describes them as sharing a common mission of imposing Islamic Supremacism on America.

“Warfare against infidels, loyalty to the believers, and jihad in the path of Allah: Such is a course of action that all who are vigilant for the triumph of Islam should vie in, giving and sacrificing in the cause of liberating the lands of the Muslims, making Islam supreme in its own land, and then spreading it around the world.”

The source of that delightful notion of supremacism is the Koran.

“He it is who has sent His Messenger (Mohammed) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam) to make it victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist.” Koran 61:9

Database records on al-Aulaqi include FBI alert: “Warning – approach with caution … Do not alert the individual to the FBI’s interest and contact your local FBI field office at earliest opportunity.”

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealing that the agency had warned agents who spotted U.S.-born al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Aulaqi to “approach with caution” the day before he spoke as an invited guest at a Pentagon luncheon. The documents also reveal that the FBI proposed prosecuting al-Aulaqi in 2001 and 2002 on charges stemming from the Imam’s spending a total of $2,320 for seven documented encounters with high-priced Washington, D.C., prostitutes.

The documents were obtained by Judicial Watch pursuant to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the FBI and the Department of State seeking records related to the al-Qaeda leader killed in a CIA-led U.S. drone attack.

Specific revelations contained in the newly released documents include the following:

The FBI had already identified al-Aulaqi as a dangerous terrorist when he was invited to speak at a Pentagon luncheon.

The documents obtained from the FBI include a computer database record showing that an FBI employee searching for al-Aulaqi’s criminal history on February 4, 2002 – the day before al-Aulaqi spoke as an invited guest at a Pentagon luncheon – retrieved information identifying al-Aulaqi as a “terrorist organization member” and containing the following alert: “Warning – approach with caution . . . Do not alert the individual to the FBI’s interest and contact your local FBI field office at the earliest opportunity.” [Emphasis added.]

Al-Aulaqi spent thousands of dollars patronizing prostitutes on several occasions in 2001 and 2002, and the FBI proposed prosecuting him on charges related to that activity.

Al-Aulaqi’s doctoral education was financed by the World Bank and supported by the Government of Yemen.

The documents include a July 12, 2000 letter from the Center for International Programs at New Mexico State University (where al-Aulaqi received his Master’s degree) confirming that he was, “sponsored for a Ph.D. degree under the auspices of a World Bank Community College Project in Yemen. This project will pay for Mr. al-Aulaqi’s tuition and fees, books, health insurance, and living costs while he is pursuing a Ph.D. degree program.”

The FBI was investigating al-Aulaqi’s links to terrorism as early as 1999.

The records include a previously Secret memorandum dated June 15, 1999 from the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s San Diego office to the FBI Director requesting that the Bureau open a counterterrorism investigation into al-Aulaqi. As part of this investigation, agents conducted surveillance of his home and at the al-Ribat mosque in San Diego where he served as Imam more than two years before the 9/11 attacks.

According to FOIA documents previously obtained from the FBI by Judicial Watch, the FBI was aware as far back as September 27, 2001, that al-Aulaqi may have purchased airplane tickets for three of the 9/11 terrorist hijackers, including mastermind Mohammed Atta. On October 10, 2002, al-Aulaqi was detained at New York’s JFK airport under a warrant for passport fraud, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. However, the FBI ordered al-Aulaqi’s release, even though the arrest warrant was still active at the time of his detention.

Coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing has ignored admitted bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s connection to his college’s Muslim Student Association, a group that has close relations with both the Muslim Brotherhood and a local imam friendly with an al-Qaida operative.

Although a student leader and the mainstream media have downplayed Tsarnaev’s ties to the the group, Tsarnaev associated frequently with the Muslim Student Association (MSA) at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

The Washington Post on April 27 reported that Tsarnaev, who has admitted his role in the Marathon terrorist bombing to police, played intramural soccer with MSA members, contradicting earlier reports that the U. Mass-Dartmouth student spurned an invitation to join the controversial Muslim Brotherhood-linked student organization.

“For a time, Jahar played on an intramural soccer team composed of students involved with the campus Muslim Student Association,” explained the Post’s Marc Fisher, a fact that has since been missing from coverage.

In fact, Tsarnaev played soccer with the Muslim Student Association nearly every week, according to MSA Secretary Bassel Nasri in an interview with George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer on April 19, 2013. Nasri simply neglected to say they were MSA games. Although Stephanopoulos described Nasri as “a soccer buddy” of Tsarnaev, neither he nor Sawyer mentioned that they were co-religionists and that the soccer games were organized by the Muslim Student Association.

A newly released FBI report indicates that an unnamed male once received a check from radical imam Anwar al-Awlaki for $280 and gave a check for $175 to Nawaf Al-Hamzi, a hijacker on American Airlines Flight 77 that flew into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The transactions suggest that al-Awlaki funded Al-Hamzi through this unnamed intermediary.

This is the third report in the last two months of a U.S.-based imam having helped to finance terrorism.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it received documents on March 4, 2013 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that raise new questions about close ties between Anwar al Aulaqi, the U.S.-born terrorist assassinated by a U.S. drone in Yemen on September 30, 2011, and Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar, two of the five hijackers who attacked the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. In the documents the FBI describes al Aulaqi as “The Spiritual Leader of the Hijackers.”

An undated FBI report indicates an individual received a check for $281.50 from al Aulaqi and wrote a check for $175 to al Hazmi on July 7, 2001. There is no additional information about the transactions. The FBI apparently found the transaction to be of investigative interest because, depending on the identity of the intermediary party, it could indicate direct assistance from al Aulaqi to al Hazmi.

On 9/13/2001, FBI agents took possession of and searched the vehicle al Aulaqi rented in San Diego on 9/8/2001 (which he kept for one day and drove only 37 miles). While there is no report regarding the results of the search, the action highlights the FBI’s interest in al Aulaqi and suspicions about his trip to San Diego, home to both al Hazmi and al Mihdhar leading up to the attacks.

An FBI report dated 10/24/2001 indicates that the Bureau became aware three days after the 9/11 attacks (9/14/2001) that al Aulaqi had rented a Mailboxes Etc. mail drop in Falls Church, VA. The mail box was the subject of a federal grand jury subpoena.

“The more we learn about Anwar al Aulaqi, the more questions arise not only about his activities before and after 9/11, but also about the al Qaeda operational and support network still active in the United States,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is now even more concerning that al Aulaqi was invited to the Pentagon after 9/11 and then let go by the FBI despite warrants for his arrest.”

An earlier release of FBI documents obtained by a Judicial Watch FOIA and reported by Fox News suggest that the FBI was aware on September 27, 2001, that al Aulaqi had purchased airplane tickets for three of the 9/11 terrorist hijackers, including mastermind Mohammed Atta. Subsequent to the FBI’s discovery, al Aulaqi was detained and released by authorities at least twice and had been invited to dine at the Pentagon…

Previous evidence showed that Al-Hamzi and fellow future hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar regarded their San Diego neighbor Al-Awlaki as a spiritual adviser, but the extent of Awlaki’s concrete support for the duo had not been firmly established.

A court in Birmingham, England has convicted three men of plotting to carry out a suicide bombing campaign inspired by the late terrorist mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki.

Irfan Khalid, Ashik Ali and Irfan Naseer were radicalized by Awlaki’s lectures and by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’s Inspire magazine, which regularly featured the terrorist mastermind’s articles prior to his death in a September 2011 drone strike.

Police found lectures by al-Awlaki on Khalid’s cell phone, including “The Book of Jihad,” “It’s a War against Islam,” “Brutality towards Muslims” and “Stop Police Terror.”

According to the Telegraph, Khalid encouraged his fellow plotters to listen to al-Awlaki’s lectures.

Additional CD-ROMs containing talks by al-Awlaki were found in Khalid’s grandparents’ home. The terrorist leader’s messages were also found stored in Ali’s laptop and cell phone.

The trio experimented with making bombs using ammonium nitrate they removed from sports injury cold packs. Experts told the court they could have developed a viable improvised explosive device (IED) using their bomb-making recipe.

Such tactics resemble the sort of “Open Source Jihad” tactics advocated in Inspire that call for small groups or individual jihadists to make bombs and other weapons using readily available ingredients.

“They wanted to commit their own 9/11. They were critical of the July 7 [2005] bombers because they didn’t kill enough people,” said Marcus Beale, assistant commissioner of the West Midlands Police, the Guardianreported. “From evidence we presented to the court there were 8-10 bombs that they wanted to deploy, a mixture of suicide bombs and IEDs. So in terms of their capability, if they delivered on the plans that they had they would have committed mass murder on a horrendous scale.”

A coordinated series of bombings in London in 2005 killed 52 people in what is known as the 7/7 attacks.

Another of the plans the trio discussed involving the attaching of blades to the wheels of cars to mow down pedestrians came directly from an Inspire article titled, “The Ultimate Mowing Machine.”

Online retail giant Amazon.com is profiting from the sale of speeches and writings by one of the world’s most notorious terrorists despite objections from those who argue the website is facilitating the dissemination of jihadist propaganda.

Al-Awlaki’s materials are not being sold by Amazon directly but via third parties in the Amazon Marketplace, which acts as a clearinghouse for books, videos, and CDs. Amazon acts as an intermediary and facilitates the sale, taking a portion of the proceeds in the process.

Amazon has failed to remove the writings following multiple appeals from United States terrorism experts who argue that the international online store is aiding the spread of terrorism.

The path from believing in radical Islamist political ideology to plotting attacks in the homeland can be triggered by a number of factors, a new Congressional Research Service report finds.

The report focuses on homegrown Islamic terrorism, which in itself is remarkable given the reluctance many in Washington have had to clearly naming a leading source of the terrorist threat. The title, “American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat,” uses the kind of language all-but-banned by the executive branch since 2008. Cabinet officials in the Obama administration have strained to avoid references to jihadist violence.

But the Congressional Research Service is tasked with producing “authoritative, confidential, objective and nonpartisan” analysis, rather than catering to political semantics. The 137-page report contains more than 500 references to “jihad” or “jihadist.” The term “Islam” or “Islamic” is used 117 times. It doesn’t deny the existence of other forms of violent extremism, including “radical environmentalism, animal rights, or anti-abortion causes,” but the report’s focus is on the threat of attacks motivated by radical Islam.

The report examines 63 homegrown jihadist plots since 9/11, noting that nearly two-thirds of those took place in just the last three years. That spike “suggests that ideologies supporting violent jihad continue to influence some Americans—even if a tiny minority,” the report says.

Among those are two deadly attacks that have not even been charged as acts of terrorism. The shootings at Fort Hood and at a Little Rock, Ark. military recruiting office were “lone wolf” attacks that left 14 people dead.

“[W]hen someone moves from simply believing in jihad to illegally pursuing it via violent methods, he becomes a terrorist,” the report says. “Because the move from belief to violence is so individualized, there is no single path that individuals follow to become full-fledged terrorists.”

Social interaction – from online sources like terrorist forums to calls to action from al-Qaida operatives like Adam Gadahn or Anwar al-Awlaki and in Inspiremagazine – has proven significant in many plots. In addition, converts to Islam were involved in 26 of the 63 cases, and many acted on a belief that “the West is harming the global community of Muslims (the Ummah), or even waging war against it.”

Other reports have agreed that the perception of a “war on Islam” is among the most effective messages in stirring Islamists to seek violence. Despite that, American Islamist groups have repeatedly made the claim.

The report also discusses the FBI’s use of informants and undercover agents in counter-terror investigations and concerns that the tactic might alienate some Muslim Americans. Lawmakers must decide if that tradeoff is worthwhile in facing what is a very real threat.

“A single successful attack can incur scores of casualties and cause considerable socioeconomic disruption. Regardless of their novelty, frequency, or lethality, violent attacks fostered by violent jihadists radicalized in the United States remain a security concern.”

The FBI suspected within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that the American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki may have purchased tickets for some of the hijackers for air travel in advance of the attacks, according to newly released documents reviewed exclusively by Fox News.

The purpose of these flights remains unclear, but the 9/11 Commission report later noted that the hijackers had used flights in the lead-up to the attacks to test security and surveillance.

The heavily redacted records – obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of information Act request – suggest the FBI held evidence tying the American-born cleric to the hijackers just 16 days after the attack that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.

“We have FBI documents showing that the FBI knew that al-Awlaki had bought three tickets for three of the hijackers to fly into Florida and into Las Vegas, including the lead hijacker, Mohammad Atta,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told Fox News.

He added that the records show the cleric, killed in September 2011 by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, “was a central focus of the FBI’s investigation of 9/11. They show he wasn’t cooperative. And they show that he was under surveillance.”

One FBI investigative report known as a 302 summarizes the bureau’s investigation of Al-Awlaki’s Visa transactions. While heavily redacted, the document indicates a credit transaction for “Atta, Mohammed — American West Airlines, 08/13/2001, Washington, DC to Las Vegas to Miami,” the document says.

The mid-August flight, according to the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, which first investigated the attacks, was one of Atta’s numerous and crucial surveillance flights.

“On August 13, Atta flew a second time across country from Washington to Las Vegas on a Boeing 757 (seated in first class) returning on August 14 to Fort Lauderdale,” the 9/11 report reads.

The FBI documents also show a credit card record for a “Suqami, S. —-Southwest Airlines, 07/10/2001, Ft. Lauderdale to Orlando.” Satam al-Suqami was one of the muscle hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11, which slammed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

The third individual, identified in the records is a “W. al-Sheri — National Airlines, 08/01/2001, San Francisco to Las Vegas to Miami.” This appears to be either Waleed al-Shehri or Wail al-Shehri. The two brothers were also muscle hijackers, according to the 9/11 Commission report.

As part of its ongoing investigation of the cleric, Fox News was first to report in the special “Fox News Reporting – The Secrets of 9/11,” broadcast in September 2011, that the cleric was an overlooked key player in the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which bills itself as “the largest Islamic umbrella organization in North America,” is meeting in Washington, D.C., this weekend for its annual conference. One former ISNA speaker won’t be in attendance this year — al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a CIA drone strike in Yemen on September 30, 2011.

On September 1, 2001, just days before the 9/11 attacks, Awlaki gave an infamous lecture on “tolerance” at the 2001 ISNA convention, just as some of his disciples were preparing to launch the largest terrorist attack in American history.

Video of Awlaki’s lecture has never before been viewed by the public. PJ Media has obtained a video — watch it above in its entirety.

At the time of the speech, Awlaki was a media darling. The New York Timeshailed him as part of “a new generation of Muslim leader capable of merging East and West.” NPR contrasted Awlaki with Osama bin Laden, describing Awlaki as one of the “moderates who want to solve the problems without violence” and someone who could “build bridges between Islam and the West.” Awlaki was even featured in a November 2001 Washington PostRamadan online chat.

The recognition of Awlaki wasn’t exclusive to the media. He was also leading prayers for congressional Muslim staffers on Capitol Hill. Post-9/11, he was lecturing on Islaminside the executive dining room of the Pentagon, still scarred from the al-Qaeda hijackers that had crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into it.

Despite those media and government accolades and recognition, the assessment that Anwar al-Awlaki was a bridge of moderation between Islam, buttressed by his lectures on “tolerance,” was a facade. The belief that he was a peaceful moderate is part of what terrorism researcher J.M. Berger has dubbed “the myth of Anwar al-Awlaki.” In fact, Awlaki’s extremism — notwithstanding his lectures on “tolerance” — was more than evident prior to 9/11 and his speech at ISNA.

A week after he gave that speech and just two days before 9/11, Awlaki was speaking at UC Irvine – with many of the same leaders speaking at the ISNA convention this weekend — at a fundraiser for cop-killer and ISNA shura council member Jamil al-Amin. Awlaki flew back to Washington, D.C., on the same morning that his three disciples boarded American Airlines Flight 77.

Not long after he left the U.S., Awlaki was part of the congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks. The head of that inquiry, Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), has publicly said: “There was a high probability that they (the hijackers) had shared with Awlaki what they were planning to do.”

A congressional probe into the Fort Hood massacre is now directed at the top of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as questions brew over whether a senior FBI official misled lawmakers in testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science responsible for funding the FBI, had asked Director Robert Mueller to come testify at an Aug. 1 hearing on the Webster Commission report into the November 2009 shootings, but the bureau sent Mark Giuliano, the FBI’s executive assistant director for national security.

The trial of Army Major Nidal Hasan, accused of killing 13 at Fort Hood, is expected to begin next week. Proceedings have been delayed by the question of whether or not the court can force him to shave his beard for trial.

In a lengthy letter to Mueller yesterday, Wolf raised concerns that Giuliano “made comments to the committee that I believe were misleading or incorrect with regard to the nature of findings in the Webster Commission report and the FBI’s understanding of Anwar Aulaqi at various points over the last decade.”

In all, Wolf singled out six troubling statements from the FBI official as “potentially misleading, uninformed or incomplete.”

At the hearing, Wolf grilled Giuliano on whether political correctness led to agents being gun-shy about aggressively pursing Hasan’s links with Islamic extremists.

“The report did not find political correctness was in any way, shape, or form responsible for his lack of going forward with the interview,” Giuliano responded.

But the Webster Commission report, requisitioned by the FBI and led by former FBI Director William H. Webster, says on two pages that the San Diego officers who reported suspicions about Hasan were told by officials in Washington that “political sensitivities” were a factor in the office’s decision not to investigate Hasan further.

“I repeatedly asked Mr. Giuiliano to cite the section of the report that found that there was no political correctness ‘in any way, shape, or form,’ but he refused. When I confronted him about misleading the committee, he admitted that I was correct on that point,” Wolf wrote in the letter to Mueller. “Later in the hearing reversed again and said that he and I just ‘disagree’ on that point.”

Wolf also noted that Giuliano’s assertion that Hasan and al-Awlaki never met in Virginia has been countered by numerous media reports stating that Hasan met his mentor in 2001 when the cleric presided over his mother’s funeral. “Please confirm for the record whether or not Maj. Hasan and Aulaqi met while he served as imam for the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia,” Wolf asked. “If so, please provide a summary of the FBI’s full understanding of their encounters, including the funeral.”

The third point of contention involves the FBI official classifying al-Awlaki, a radical cleric who became a recruiter for al-Qaeda in Yemen, as a “propagandist.”

Giuliano characterized the terrorist as such when refusing to answer a committee question on whether violent Islamic extremism was at the root of the Fort Hood massacre.

Under questioning from ranking member Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), Giuliano said that al-Awlaki “changed and he changed a lot over the years. When he went to prison in Yemen in, you know, ’06, ’07 and as he came out and came back up online in early ’08, he still had somewhat of a moderate tone but – but began to be more of a propagandist, began to show more radical tendencies, but we could not and the [Intelligence Committee] did not see him as operational or in an operational role at that time.”

“This statement, quite simply, is fundamentally false,” Wolf wrote, citing a 2008 Washington Post article in which a U.S. counterterrorism official said there was good reason to believe al-Awlaki “has been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the United States” — the same time period in which the FBI official said he “still had somewhat of a moderate tone.”

Al-Awlaki also had amassed a lengthy record of radical writings by this time, including praise of the 9/11 hijackers and Palestinian suicide bombers — far from a “moderate” tone. He even wrote of his own radicalization path, beginning with the mujahadeen in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, for al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine shortly before his death.

The Webster Commission report, Wolf pointed out, specifically notes that at least certain sections of the bureau perceived the threat posed by Awlaki around 2009 as more serious than a mere “propagandist” or radicalizer, and the Treasury Department noted al-Awlaki’s operational role in terrorist activities in announcing his July 2010 placement on the sanctions list.

Citing additional evidence from an NYPD analysis on al-Awlaki, which showed even more terror ties, Wolf said that as early as 14 years ago the FBI was keeping a sharp eye on the radical cleric — which made Giuliano’s assertions all the more confusing.

“Given this public information demonstrating Aulaqi’s long history with al-Qaeda-affiliated groups and multiple bureau investigations, please confirm for the record whether the bureau viewed Aulaqi only as ‘propagandist’ with a ‘moderate tone’ as late as 2008, or in fact regarded him as a more complex and substantial threat than Mr. Giuliano described?” Wolf wrote.

In the early morning hours of October 10, 2002, Anwar al-Awlaki, the notorious al Qaeda operative, was detained by U.S. Customs agents when he arrived at JFK International Airport in New York City after a flight from Saudi Arabia. At the time, he was a prime suspect in the 9/11 attacks and had been placed on terrorist watch-lists. Nevertheless, the Bush Justice Department directed Customs to release him. That decision enabled Awlaki to continue his jihadist campaign against the United States until he was finally killed in Yemen last September, in an American drone attack.

For nearly a decade since Awlaki was permitted to go free at the airport, the government has maintained that he was released because an arrest warrant for him, based on a 1993 felony passport fraud charge, had been vacated before his arrival, due to insufficient evidence. The government has suggested, moreover, that sheer coincidence explained the dismissal of the fraud charge right before Awlaki showed up at JFK: just a random assessment that a case was too weak, made by prosecutors and investigators who were unaware of Awlaki’s imminent arrival.

Now, Fox’s Catherine Herridge breaks the news that the government’s story is untrue. In House testimony this week, a top FBI official admitted that the Bureau and federal prosecutors knew Awlaki was about to return to the United States before he arrived at JFK. Furthermore, it emerged at the House hearing that the passport fraud warrant had not been vacated when Awlaki was briefly detained. The warrant remained valid and pending; it could have been used to arrest him. Instead, the Justice Department intervened to “un-arrest” him. With apologies extended by federal agents to both Awlaki and the Saudi government representative conveniently on hand to assist him, the terrorist was sprung.

I would also throw this into the hopper: The Justice Department’s rationale for dismissing the warrant is fatally flawed. Awlaki should have been arrested and prosecuted on the passport violation in 2002. That would not just have been a worthy effort in its own right; it would have had the added benefit of giving terrorism investigators more time, and more leverage, to develop a convincing terrorism case against Awlaki and other suspects. Why the case was dropped is a question that deserves much more scrutiny. After all, the release at JFK marked the second time, in a matter of months, that Awlaki wriggled free despite the heavy cloud of 9/11 suspicion that hovered over him.

To be blunt, the government’s Awlaki story does not pass the laugh test.

It was always incredible to suggest, as the Justice Department has, that Awlaki’s release was the result of a series of remarkable coincidences. Until this week, the story went something like this: After obtaining a valid arrest warrant in Denver federal court, the FBI case agent and assistant U.S. attorney assigned to the matter decided, out of the blue, to review the file. It just happened to be the day before Awlaki tried to reenter the country. There was nothing going on in the case that called for a review at that time – Awlaki was out of the country, there was no urgency to file an indictment, and an indictment on the simple charge would have been easy to obtain once the time came. One would think the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in a major city would have more pressing matters to attend to. Yet, they undertook to scrub their evidence and concluded – to the astonishment of federal terrorism investigators then probing Awlaki in San Diego – that the passport fraud complaint they had only recently filed against Awlaki was too weak to stand.

Abruptly, they decided to dismiss it – not sleep on it, not think about what evidence might shore it up, not consider how the information they’d amassed might warrant new charges against Awlaki. No, they just dismissed the only existing charge against a pivotal 9/11 suspect – even though many other suspects had been held for weeks, without any charges at all, on “material witness” warrants.

The government has disingenuously represented that, with the warrant already purportedly “pulled” due to the latently discovered “weakness” of its passport fraud case, there was no legitimate basis to detain Awlaki when Customs agents unexpectedly encountered him at JFK in October 2002. Thus the agents simply had no choice but to release him into the waiting arms of his Saudi handler.